Noah Webster & God

[Salvation #6] 

Having established that salvation may be knowable, even when we are unable to clearly define salvation or unable to agree upon such a definition, we turn to the question of why we have been left to write our own definition. If our own definition writing requires that we wade in the oft-murky waters of scripture interpretation, then why has God failed to clearly provide such crucial information? Why didn't God just give us a dictionary if he knew the mess we would make of this? Why did he give us the Bible, filled with poetry, riddles, proverbs, songs, correspondence, code, and lots and lots of stories and parables, instead? Understand that these are types of writing not normally used to dictate precise definitions, or genres from which we expect to extract them. And why use Hebrew of all languages for the majority of this, a language known for its ambiguity?

Maybe neat, theological definitions don't exist. Maybe God isn't at all eager to spoon-feed them to us if they do. Maybe they are as nonsensical as mathematical equations written to explain color. Maybe God is less interested in developing our knowledge than our character, our humility, or our relationship with him. Maybe God knows that definitions create the illusion of mastery, certainty, and control; and maybe he is less interested in being defined or understood than being known, obeyed, and loved. 

What definition of "God" do we find in Scripture, for that matter, and shouldn't that be even more important than understanding salvation? "God is love;" "God is spirit;" "God is a consuming fire;" "God is light." How's that for a single and clear definition of what God is? And what about Jesus? How eager was he to give key definitions? The gospels record his question, "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like?" and multiple different answers—yeast, a farmer, a landlord, seeds, etc.—but no instances of "What is the exact definition of God's kingdom?" Really, if he wanted to communicate definitions, he picked an odd way to do it.

The obvious answer is that God's purpose, both for his inspiration of the Scriptures and in his glorious performance on the stage of history, was not and has never been to give us definitions, or to satisfy our desire for propositional certainty. Or, as Karl Barth reportedly said, "Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God. [...] He is Himself the way." His purpose is that we might come to know the guide himself, rather than a map. As a result, much of our theological definition writing distracts us from God's real message and intent. And, perhaps, is as misguided and inappropriate as reading love poems for a technical understanding of how the heart works. To put it another way, the point and priority of neither God nor the Scriptures is to give us a definition of salvation that we can memorize, recite, and stick on our bumpers. 

Noah Webster's contribution to the English-speaking world was a book of words and definitions. What God the Father has given to all of us instead is Jesus, the Word of God. He has spoken to us directly through his Son, that we might know him. And this is eternal life. This is salvation.

Explaining Our Differences

[Salvation #5]

Now, we could conclude from the church's differences on salvation that we really don't know what it is, or really don't get it, or really don't have it, even. And that, therefore, we really don't have any basis for communion, for community, or for witness. We could conclude that perhaps we really aren't Christ's body. Or that most of us aren't part of it, anyway. We could conclude that salvation is unknowable, or even fictional.

Another, less-troubling explanation for why we have different definitions of salvation is that we have allowed our focus to drift from knowing or experiencing salvation to defining salvation, to reducing something amazing and miraculous into words of a particular language. Perhaps we do understand what salvation is, but just have trouble explaining it—in words, at least. Which isn't the only way to explain something, to be fair. Some words have very broad definitions; other defy easy pigeonholing. We might have similar difficulties when defining other words, such as hero, art, America, or beauty. We might have similar difficulty explaining in words how much we love someone.

Language is a very tricky thing. Some languages are much better at expressing certain kinds of ideas. Some languages make certain tasks much harder to accomplish, like explaining whether an event is past, present, or future, for example. Some languages cause more airplane crashes. Different languages perhaps can even create different types of thought and can shape different views of reality. If God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, can we really expect that each of our human languages fully expresses God's thoughts, or that our words can fully define the wonders of salvation?

God's gift to us was not a dictionary. Therefore, we've written most theological definitions by ourselves. And some of these come from attempts to harmonize numerous verses of Scripture, written by numerous authors, over the course of more than a millennium, in three languages, in various genres from poetry to history to apocalyptic literature, and often with cultural, historical, and literary context that has been lost to most of us over the last 3,000 years. Is it any wonder that we might inadvertently add at least a little of our own interpretation to the original meaning in the Bible when we construct our clever definitions, when we create what the Bible itself has failed to give us?

And interpretation is a problem.

Next stop: Why didn't God give us a dictionary?

Those Who Oppose Our Message

[Salvation #4]

So, we're confronted with the possibility that we're blundering through life without a clear understanding of the gospel. And the apparent fact that we, "the saved," disagree on almost every aspect of what salvation is and what one has to do to be saved. We nod our heads and say the lost must be born again, but we have very different ideas about what that phrase means, how it works, or what it has to look like.

No surprise that this causes some heavy-duty cognitive dissonance—when many of us grew up with the gospel neatly packaged and delivered to us with a fistful of cliches about how simple the gospel is. But the bigger problem with our disagreement may be what it tempts us to believe about or do to those who disagree with us, though they are our brothers and sisters, our family, the church.

Let us be clear: disagreement coming from those in our own faith community, from those we thought we didn't have to persuade or defend against, can be very threatening. Especially when our criterion for being in community turns out to be the very point of controversy. If I can't convince you, might that mean my claims are weak? If you don't agree with me, might I be wrong? And if those in the church don't agree, why would we expect anyone else to believe our message?

Confused or threatened by our differences, our first instinct is often to question. Weren't we on the same side? Aren't we children of the same heavenly Father? Our hurt and puzzlement are understandable, perhaps. Disagreement, difference even, is the opposite of what causes community in the first place. Especially, as in the case of the church, when our solidarity is defined in stark absolutes: heaven and hell, the lost and the found, the redeemed and the damned. Especially when the stakes are life and death, and the consequences eternal.

The speed with which we move from confusion to suspicion, however, is much more problematic. If we disagree, his faith must be weak, we reason. If we differ, she must not take the Bible as seriously as the rest of us. We bolster our own rightness at the expense of the other. Our fear of being wrong and our need to justify at all costs are sad but all too predictable. I in the middle, again. The sin thing. Rather than preferring the other, always trusting and always believing the best, we entertain doubts about motives, allegiance, or even spiritual maturity. They probably aren't even saved. That would explain everything. Such ultimate accusations reveal how far we will go to justify our own position; how readily we will sell our own kin down the river to discredit their views and vouchsafe our own beliefs; how willing we are even to sacrifice relationships, rather than give up what we hold dearer than love and loyalty.

Difference leads to disappointment, suspicion, and, perhaps, eventual betrayal on our part. Which—far from apologizing for—we defend as our right. As though we founded the club and wrote its membership rules. How great our disappointment in those who should have seen the reasonableness of our wisdom. How great the offense of those who, if they were really saved, should have known better. As though, even worse than letting us down, they have actually sinned against us by not agreeing with all of our cherished convictions, our self-defining opinions, and our precious, precious preferences.

What If We Are Wrong?

[Salvation #3]

What does it mean that our agreement on salvation appears to fall apart once we move from terms to definitions? Some of the implications are unsettling, at best:

1. That we—collectively, as the church—don't understand what the gospel is, apparently. Or particularly well, at least. Or well enough to explain it. Without contradicting or vexing other brothers and sisters who have spent just as much effort, study, and prayer to understand salvation as we have—if not more. Including those who have lived under persecution, who have sought truth with more desperation and at greater cost.

2. That there is a real possibility that many of us, individually, don't understand the gospel correctly. That we really don't know what we're talking about. Though we may think we do. Or at least act as if we do whenever we judge the salvation of those around us.

3. That those who sense these possibilities, who see the speck of error or uncertainty in our brother's eye and know what the mirror will reveal, live out their salvation with a gnawing insecurity about our apparent inability to get the story straight.

Insecurity would explain the gymnastics we require of people when we present the gospel—lest anyone fall short of the threshold due to our flawed understanding. What if I miss a step in the recipe? What if I don't explain all necessary hoops? What if I forget the password? We act as if we fear we might be doing it all wrong—thwarting the great commission, even. As if someone's salvation was really up to us, dependent on how perfectly we make the pitch and close the deal.

Insecurity would explain our many lines in the sand, our lists of preferences, convictions, and doctrinal enemies. Our insistence on defining ourselves by our personal and denominational differences hints at a need to be recognized, approved, and proved right—or at least more right than others. Where does the self-justification end? Splitting the church into micro-denominations, into pieces tiny enough finally that all members of our group agree with us? Would we then be content? Or is empire building necessary to buttress the worth and rightness of our opinions?

Insecurity would explain our longing for doctrinal absolutes and our passionate self-defense against ambiguity. We fear that our theological house of cards will come crashing down if we acknowledge any uncertainty. To acknowledge, even to myself, that I might have misunderstood the gospel opens the door of possibility that I might be wrong about anything and everything. What else? How much? For how long? And what about my own salvation?

These are paralyzing questions.

Are You Saved If...?

[Salvation #2]

Continuing from my previous post, many would say that salvation is the central issue of Christianity, the very heart of the gospel, but agreement on the meaning of the word appears to have eluded the church throughout most -- if not all -- of its history.

Let us consider what salvation actually means at the level of the individual. Would we say that someone is saved if ...

1. he has begged for forgiveness of sins but feels no love, only terror, towards God?
   
2. she is four years old and "just loves Jesus"?
3. he is a (choose one) bigot / child abuser / bigamist / homosexual / addict?
4. she continues to sin (choose one) regularly / after a certain period of time following her conversion / only certain sins -- drunkenness, for example, or rock music?
5. he died very young -- or even was aborted?
6. she has been mentally retarded from birth?
7. he "confessed Jesus with his mouth," but doesn't fully understand or believe in his heart that "God raised him from the dead"?
8. she prayed a Sinner's Prayer as a child but now is apathetic about personal spiritual discipline or church participation?
9. he commits suicide?
10. she is (choose one) demon-possessed / mentally ill / chronically sick / poor?
11. he believes that well-meaning people from all religions can be saved, though he believes his own salvation has something to do with Jesus?
12. she believes she is, but never asked to be saved -- never "invited Jesus into her heart"?
13. he isn't sure whether he is saved or not?
14. she doesn't believe in (choose one) literal heaven and hell / inerrancy of scripture / the divinity of Jesus?
    
15. he claims to be a Christian, but has no intention of giving up his sexually active lifestyle?

Do all Christians agree? All pastors and priests? All theologians and scholars?

Though no biologist (or perhaps because I am not), I am reminded of the disagreement between Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins over the mechanism of evolution. If these two keepers of the flame, examining the same "scientific record" each thought the other's model was rubbish, then their shared belief in evolution seems to be more of a consensus on a single term to call their contradictory views -- or agreement on a Platonic form. 

Maybe that seems good enough. Agree to disagree, and all. Semantics. 

But if my wife and I agree that fruit is the tastiest food on earth, and my wife is referring to mangoes while I am referring to blackberries, then our agreement is nonsensical. And if my "soon" doesn't correspond to her "soon" when I reassure her that I haven't forgotten about taking out the garbage, then it seems a bit strained to say that she and I really agree in a meaningful way on when I'm going to finish conquering the world and come downstairs. 

In like manner, if many Christians agree that salvation is key to understanding the gospel, that "you must be born again," but disagree on what salvation is, and what is required, and whether or not the person we are speaking with is already saved, then what agreement is that? If we have different definitions of salvation, then what do we actually have? Agreement on vocabulary, only? 

Next Stop: What do these differences mean?

What Must I Do to Be Saved?

[Salvation #1]

Salvation. It doesn't get more basic than that, does it? The gospel. The good news. The great Rescue Plan, as The Jesus Storybook Bible puts it.

But what exactly does "salvation" mean?

Christian salvation has been understood in different ways by different people at different times in history. See how many from this short list ring bells:

1. Salvation is only for the Jews.
   
2. Salvation is also for the Gentiles, but circumcision is still required (Acts 10 - 11).
3. Salvation is also for the Gentiles, and circumcision is not required -- but abstaining from blood and a handful of other duties are still (choose one) required / expected / requested / encouraged (Acts 15).
4. Salvation occurs through baptism (choose one) for believing adults / for any adult / even for infants / even for the dead (I Cor. 15: 29).
5. Salvation requires water baptism, and the method might be important, too.
6. Salvation requires speaking in tongues.
7. Salvation requires evidence of good works (Matt. 25: 34 - 45) or of some definition of "holiness."
8. Salvation (choose one) can / can't be lost.
9. Salvation (choose one) can / can't be rejected, once a person is saved.
   
10. Salvation requires hearing or reading the gospel in the King James translation.
11. Salvation requires proper understanding of one or more doctrines: nature of God, nature of Jesus, nature of man, nature of sin, nature of the Bible.
12. Salvation requires following a specific procedure or ritual, perhaps including confession of sins, or public confession of a specific sentence ("Jesus is Lord," for example), or repeating certain doctrinal statements in a prayer -- even though such a "Sinner's Prayer" typically contains more theology than most new converts actually understand.
13. Salvation (choose one) does / doesn't depend on us (the free will vs. predestination debate).
14. Salvation can be requested but refused by God.
15. Salvation requires someone going and "preaching the gospel," first.

More to come. Next time: Are You Saved If...?